Russia to U.S.: Choose us or Georgia

And the choice is Georgia!

Now why would the United States choose Georgia, a free and democratic nation over Russia, a nation ruled by a former KGB agent who thinks he's a Czar?

Russia pressed the United States on Wednesday to choose between "a real partnership" with Moscow or an "illusory" relationship with U.S. ally Georgia.

Washington said it's sticking with Georgia.

"As to choosing, the United States has made very clear that it is standing by the democratically elected government of Georgia," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday.

She spelled out the Bush administration's stance after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Georgia's government "a special project for the United States."

"And we are aware that the U.S. is uptight about this project," Lavrov said in remarks broadcast on Russian television. "But a choice will have to be made someday between considerations of prestige related to an illusory project and a real partnership in matters which indeed require collective efforts."

Rice, amid reports that Russian troops remained on the move Wednesday, pushed Russia to abide by a cease-fire signed Tuesday by the Russian and Georgian presidents.

Full Story

Finally some backbone from Condi Rice. It only took a weekend and a half a dozen phone calls to get her to stand up to the bully Russia.

Rice said Moscow already faced "quite significant" diplomatic consequences over its conflict with Georgia before Tuesday's cease-fire agreement.

Any violations of the cease-fire would call into question Russia's "suitability" as an international partner, Rice told reporters before leaving on a diplomatic trip to Europe.

Bush administration officials told CNN the United States and its European allies were considering kicking Russia out of the G-8, the group of the world's largest industrial economies, and other international organizations as punishment for its actions in Georgia.

Rice discounted concerns that Moscow would no longer assist Washington on thorny diplomatic issues such as efforts to halt nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, saying it had its own interests at stake.

"Let's be very clear whose interests are being served by the partnership that Russia and the United States have engaged in on Iran or North Korea," she said. "Again, it's not a favor to the United States."

Georgia has been a close U.S. ally, contributing troops to the war in Iraq and seeking to join NATO with Washington's support. In a CNN interview Wednesday, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili criticized the United States for not doing more to help his nation.

"America is losing the whole region, and this is the region of eastern and central Europe," said Saakashvili, who called for the United States and European powers to send peacekeepers to the region. "This is much bigger than any other place where there is American influence, and this is the most natural allies of America."

I wonder what the late President Ronald Reagan would have done in this situation. He probably would have taken the military to DEFCOM 2, then told the Russians that he would go to DEFCOM 1 if they didn't back down. Raising and lowering the DEFCOM was one way the US got the attention of the Soviets back during the Cold War. And no matter what Putin thinks, Russia isn't the Soviet Union and he isn't the President of a superpower any more. Russia is a second rate nation with nuclear weapons. That is all. And he better start thinking in those lines.